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Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Observation of Tutoring an ESL Student

This session was between a
writing 990 student whose native language was Nuer. (Sudanese dialect) As
usual, the tutor begins by asking the student if he has his assignment sheet,
the student nods as he accesses canvas on his tablet. Later I would find out
that there were actually two assignments, the first of which was to write 20
simple sentences about “civic engagement.”

The
tutor opens the session by asking the student if he knows what the assignment
means by “simple sentence,” the student makes what seemed a wild, yet somewhat
educated guess. His guess (as expected) is inaccurate. Responding to the
student, the tutor then begins his explanation of a simple sentence by telling
the student that a simple sentence consists of only one clause. It seems as if
the student isn’t familiar with the term “clause,” so I noticed that the tutor
refrains from using this term throughout the rest of the session. I thought
this was wise on his part as not to confuse the student even further.
Continuing his explanation, the tutor informs that the simplest of sentences
will consist of only 2, sometimes 3 components: a subject, a verb, and
sometimes an object.

Most
of the sentences that the student had written were complex sentences, so the
tutor helped show him how to make them into simple sentences by removing some
of the information from each. The student also strayed from the topic of civic
engagement, and the tutor tried to explain to the student that all of his
simple sentences must have something to do with civic engagement. Asking the student
if he knew what the phrase “civic engagement” meant, the tutor was again
returned with what sounded like a wild guess. It seems as if the student doesn’t
understand the difference between the assignment (writing 20 simple sentences)
and the topic (civic engagement). At this point, the tutor clarifies the
difference, and shows the student how to remain on topic with his sentences.

Nearing
the end of discussion for this assignment, the tutor reiterates what
differentiates a complex sentence from a simple one. The tutor supplies him
with good clues such as: if the sentence uses commas, or “and-or-but” words,
then it is complex. I noticed that the tutor refrained from using the word “conjunction”
to label these words, rather referring to them as “and-or-but” words. In a way,
I thought this was polite of the tutor because the student may not be familiar
with the term “conjunction,” and use of the word may cause further confusion.

The
second assignment the student presented was very similar to the first, but
rather than constructing simple sentences, he was expected to construct complex
sentences. The topic for this assignment was “family members suffering from
poor health.” The tutor again recaps the difference between simple and complex
sentences, reading some of the sentences aloud and asking the student if they
are simple or complex. The student struggles to answer correctly at first;
again, throwing out what seemed like wild guesses. After the tutor again repeats
the differences between simple and complex sentences, the student finally
proves to be grasping the differences by properly identifying some of the
sentences he had written. The student seemed to be in a state of enlightenment,
really seeming as if he understood the differences, which I think he did. The
tutor asks the student if he has any further questions, the student does not,
so they thank each other and bid farewell. It was very interesting to observe
how a student went from being in the dark about such a concept, to what was apparently
a firm grasp of it in one session. This really taught me how much some of these
students can learn in such a short period of time when it is properly explained
to them.

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